The textures are seductive. With their muted palettes and purposeful blur, the films of Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij suggest something older, grainier and more sophisticated than straight formula.

There’s a metaphysical heft to the frames and the stories that conjure memories of American cinema in the early 1970s when anti-heroes such as Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro rallied against the status quo with cynicism and a snarl.

This richness launched Marling into the stratosphere in the wake of Another Earth, her 2011 Sundance debut (directed by Mike Cahill), and it gave Marling and Batmanglij enough clout to realize The Sound of My Voice — a sci-fi story originally conceived as a web series, but brought to the big screen with Marling in the lead as a cult leader who says she is from the future.

Yet, for all the cinematic cleverness and depth of character demonstrated in their latest outing, The East, this eco-terror themed thriller never really explodes.

It just sits there looking sexy as it gives the viewer a crash course in civil disobedience and anti-corporate rhetoric — as delivered by self-righteous 20-somethings.

That’s actually not as painful as it sounds because like all of the team’s previous work, it’s not without a sense of humour.

If anything, these two understand their generation so well, they’re able to dissect the abstract conflicts with laser-guided precision and pull out the wriggling character flaws with a gentle, but often clinical, hand.

It makes for a creepy mood because we’re never quite certain of the intent, but that’s the whole point of The East, a movie that dares question the real world implications of corporate America’s profit motive.

With Marling once again assuming the lead, we’re introduced to a young couple (Marling and Jason Ritter) who embody the very epitome of American values: God-loving Christians with good jobs and plans to get married.

They both seem honest and caring, but she’s not telling her husband the truth when she heads off to work every morning. A former government operative, Sarah now works for a private security firm that specializes in corporate intelligence and she’s just been assigned the task of infiltrating The East — a group of environmental activists looking to expose corporate America’s amorality.

Holding her crucifix in her hand before she dies her hair blond and whittles away the soles on her Birkenstocks to look used, Sarah asks for God’s guidance and strength as she prepares to enter the black sea of the organized anarchist movement.

The set-up is one of the stronger sequences in the film because it pushes Sarah’s character into three dimensions from the beginning: She’s committed to a cause and collecting truth, but she’s also signed her name to the current social contract. She willingly obeys all the laws — for now.

Things shift quickly once Sarah falls in with Benji (Alexander Skarsgard), Izzy (Ellen Page) and Doc (Toby Kebbell), members of The East holed up in a burnt-out cottage in the woods.

Infused with well-earned paranoia, the old-timers are wary of the new recruit who stumbles into their midst. Izzy, in particular, sees Sarah as a threat and tests her mettle at every turn.

This friction, combined with the looming action against big pharma, should have given The East an efficient dramatic engine as the two potent young women engage in a subtle fencing match armed with emotional epees.

And while it’s fun to watch Page fight off her kid image with a dour face, and Marling has ample screen presence, there’s not much chemistry here. Even when Benji shows off his naked buttocks and makes a play for Sarah, the sparks fall into the swamp of murky social content.

The biggest problem isn’t the film’s inherent critique of corporate greed, which is actually well articulated by Marling — who was once recruited by Goldman Sachs. The nagging problem is a basic dislike for most of the characters.

Izzy is supposed to be the adorable true believer and a point of sympathy, but Page plays her with such a bratty coolness she’s impossible to even admire. Benji is smart and handsome, but he’s got a God complex that makes him irritating and condescending. And Sarah, the de facto protagonist, looks like any other young, ambitious sell-out.

If Marling and Batmanglij really wanted to make us care about the core issue, they had no to make the environment a character: Show us the beauty of a tree before it’s felled, or a cute animal before it’s skinned for fur.

They don’t do it because it’s a cheap play for sympathy. Moreover, it’s a betrayal of what this movie is really all about: the human condition. It’s humans who are responsible for the mess we’re in, and Marling and Batmanglij are brave enough to show just how shallow, selfish and blind we all are in the big picture.

Everyone in this movie is culpable. Everyone in this movie betrays someone else and points a finger of blame in the opposite direction.

As a fable pondering the nature of personal responsibility, The East reflects our endless hypocrisy with absolute clarity. But as an emotional experience — which is why we go to movies in the first place — The East falls flat because we just don’t care about anyone or anything, which may affirm the movie’s bleak message of environmental ambivalence, but fails to light the bonfire of change.

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